This exciting project brings together three works celebrating poetry and music.

We pay tribute to English composer Harrison Birtwistle who passed away in April 2022. Birtwistle is best known for his opera output, but this more intimate song cycle on texts by Rilke demonstrates his capacity to create truly beautiful chamber music. Songs 1, 2, and 5 from the cycle will be performed.

Greg Caffrey’s 'Death of a Naturalist', on poems by Ireland’s most celebrated modern poet Seamus Heaney, began life as a song cycle for piano and baritone. It is performed here in a special arrangement written for the Hard Rain wind and string players and baritone voice in celebration of the ensemble’s 10th anniversary season.

'Pierrot Lunaire' needs little introduction to audiences. It is a melodrama setting 21 poems by Albert Giraud. Considered to be a masterpiece of chamber music repertoire, it was written, unusually, for a ‘reciter’ and is commonly performed by a soprano. The work’s instrumentation has given rise to this group of instruments becoming a standard combination in the 20th and 21st Century. Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble, who perform in this event, is one such ‘Pierrot Ensemble’.

In addition to the players of the Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble, the evening will feature mezzo soprano Sarah Richmond and baritone Malachy Frame.